The present invention relates in general to a binder apparatus for binding a bundle of stacked paper sheets such as paper money and in particular to an apparatus for winding a binding tape around the bundle of stacked paper sheets in such binder apparatus.
In some applications, it is known that a bundle of many sheets of paper such as paper money is required to be bound by winding a binder tape therearound. In such case, a forward end of the binder tape as fed from a suitable supply reel is first inserted into the stacked papers. When the tape has been wound around the paper stack in a desired number of turns, the tape is cut and the cut end portion is bonded to the other tape portion wound around the paper stack in a superposed position. An important problem in such binding operation resides of course in whether the bundle of stacked paper sheets of a given thickness can be securely bound without the possibility of the bound paper sheets thereafter becoming loosened. In order to accomplish a positive binding operation, it is required that the binder tape be maintained in a tensioned state during the winding operation.
Hithertofore, the winding operation of the binder tape has in most cases been performed manually by an operator. Accordingly, difficulties have been encountered in maintaining the binder tape in a desired tensioned state which is a difficult condition to control. Thus, it has heretofore been impossible to carry out the paper bundle binding operation with a high efficiency.